


Call Off Your Ghost

by ExpressAndAdmirable



Series: The Heroes of Light [6]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Final Fantasy I
Genre: Abortion, Backstory, F/M, Summer Love, Tiefling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 20:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13151511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpressAndAdmirable/pseuds/ExpressAndAdmirable
Summary: The aftermath of a sweet summer romance. Contains: abortion.





	Call Off Your Ghost

Lux stared at the dark liquid in her cup.

He had been so beautiful. Nearly as tall as she, his skin a deeper red, with elegant, gently curved horns sweeping up and back over his thick black hair. A year older, his dark eyes had seen right through her armour, her otherworldly persona, straight into the core of her. She, merely eighteen, had taken to him immediately.

He was a performer, like her, in town for the weeks leading up to the Festival. She played on a street corner, and he complimented her. He could breathe and spin fire, and she was enchanted. They arranged a performance together. The crowd who gathered watched with entranced terror and roared with approval at the finish. They decided they would try it again the next day.

Lux stared at the dark liquid in her cup.

They practiced and they performed. They talked. She sang. He listened. They danced to music neither or both could hear. They laughed. They walked the city late at night, when their eyes were at their keenest. They hid behind the market and drew each other close. He kissed her lips, her neck, her chest. She gasped at his touch and marked his flesh with her fingers. They shared of one another.

The weeks passed quickly. Her violin told the story of his flames and their baskets filled with coin. They rented rooms in taverns and ducked into back alleys. She never took him home. On the last night of the festival they put on their grandest spectacle. She felt sick, nauseous from nerves, but he took her hand and they mounted the stage. Afterwards they embraced. She wept bittersweet tears and he kissed them away. He had to go, but he promised he would return the next year. She knew he would not.

Lux stared at the dark liquid in her cup.

She was sick for three days. It was worse in the mornings, when she was so dizzy she could barely move. She would improve by the evening but start the cycle over at daybreak. She knew it was no illness.

In time she managed to mask the symptoms and return to her routine. She played in the taverns and on the street corners, but her mind was elsewhere. A dread had taken hold deep inside her, a horror she could not fathom. She could not bring another like herself into the world. Even if she could love it, which she did not know, the darkness was too great a risk. She would not.

Lux stared at the dark liquid in her cup.

The apothecary had judged her when she purchased the herbs. She did not care. The apothecary would have judged her regardless. That, at least, was not new. She used the last of the coin they had earned together. It seemed fitting.

She waited until she knew her mother would be gone for days on business. She had the shop and the flat to herself. The herbs were bitter and the tea pungent and cloudy. She poured the brew into a battered goblet and took it up to her bedroom. She felt numb.

Lux stared at the dark liquid in her cup. Then she drank it in one harsh dose. She nearly retched, but did not. She breathed slowly and deeply. Part of her wanted to weep, but no tears would come.

She sat on her bed and waited. She looked at her violin.

There would be no music today.

**Author's Note:**

> Title song by Dessa.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @expressandadmirable for a proper table of contents for the Heroes campaign, commissioned character art, text-based roleplay snippets and more!


End file.
